


Myosotis

by guineapiggie



Series: written for the Jyn Appreciation Squad [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: He does not know if she is alive, but a foolish part of him wants to believe that he would know if she was dead, because he’s her father and he held her in his arms when she drew her very first breath.He wonders, sometimes, when he’s too tired to stop himself, if she thinks of him. And he wonders, now, if he wants her to.





	Myosotis

  

> _O, lest the world should task you to recite_  
>  _What merit lived in me, that you should love_  
>  _After my death, dear love, forget me quite,_  
>  _For you in me can nothing worthy prove,_
> 
> _Unless you would devise some virtuous lie_  
>  _To do more for me than mine own desert_  
>  _And hang more praise upon deceasèd I_  
>  _Than niggard truth would willingly impart._
> 
> _O, lest your true love may seem false in this,_  
>  _That you for love speak well of me untrue,_  
>  _My name be buried where my body is_  
>  _And live no more to shame nor me nor you._
> 
> _For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,  
>  And so should you, to love things nothing worth._
> 
> **\- Sonnet 72, William Shakespeare**

 

His face is floating in the darkness, pale and gaunt, lips a thin, firm line, eyes set deep into their sockets, colour undiscernible and no life in them to speak of.

If that isn’t bloody fitting.

He doesn’t move, keeps staring into his ghostly twin in the monstrous window even as the steps on the polished floor grow louder behind him.

Krennic doesn’t knock. Of course he doesn’t.

“Are your lights malfunctioning again?” The director almost seems to glow in the dark in his white suit, sans his beloved dramatic cape, his only concession to time spent at leisure. He makes no move for the light switch himself.

“They’re fine. I’m all good here,” he answers, in a voice to match his reflection. “Thank you.”

“How is it coming along, Galen? How much longer, do you think?”

He stares into the dark shadows where his eyes should be. He’s too tired to shrug.

“Work is going steadily, Krennic. No new hitches.”

“Good.” Krennic steps closer, his boots loud on the floor, and his reflection joins his, a white spectre next to his own, shrouded in shadowy, nondescript greys.

“You seem preoccupied, Galen.”

 _Preoccupied._ It’s been ten years. Ten years to the day that his wife – his _child_ –

He sighs a little. “I do?”

Krennic throws him a strange look. “You really do think I’m stupid, don’t you?” He gives a deep sigh of his own. “It has been a decade, Galen. It’s time for you to accept that people who turn against the Empire pay a price.” His blue eyes return to his, and, bizarrely, the regret in them looks real when he says: “It _is_ regrettable the child got caught in the middle of it, I agree.”

Galen wonders if this is some kind of partial amnesia, or if Krennic really does believe in all this garbage he says.

“But it has been a long time now, and the emperor will get tired of this excuse sooner rather than later.”

“Yes,” Galen says flatly, still staring.

“You should forget about them,” Krennic says softly.

He can’t see his own eyes in his reflection, not really, but he can see her, braids mussed, eyes wide and scared, his beautiful darling little –

He does not know if she is alive, but a foolish part of him wants to believe that he would _know_ if she was dead, because he’s her father and he held her in his arms when she drew her very first breath.

He wonders, sometimes, when he’s too tired to stop himself, if she thinks of him. And he wonders, now, if he wants her to.

If missing him feels for her like it feels for him, then no. She will have enough pain to live with without him.

Without the burden.

But then again, she is the last person who remembers him – well, remembers the parts of him he’d _want_ to be remembered. But he couldn’t ask that of her. He isn’t worth the pain.

_Forget me, stardust. Forget all about me._

“Did your men ever find her?” he asks very softly. It’s a gamble, and a dangerous one – he doesn’t know if he can ask this, if it’s a bridge too far, but… he has to know.

“Orson?” Now this is just desperate, but it’s all he has.

Krennic throws him a blank look. “Well, they would have informed me if they hadn’t,” he replies indignantly. “They had orders.”

With that, he walks out, and despite knowing there are cameras, despite knowing someone will learn of any signs of resistance in him, Galen lets himself sag against the cold glass, hands pressed against the pane like he could sink through it into the endless vacuum outside.

But he can’t, not yet. The weapon isn’t finished. He’s far from done, but he’s so tired.

What Krennic said doesn’t confirm anything, and that hope, stupid and faint as it is, he’ll cling to.

It’s all he has.

* * *

 

Ten years, to the day, she thinks, pulling her jacket closer around herself with a slight shiver. She wishes the memories would have faded a little more over time.

Her hand curls around the pendant around her neck.

She wishes… oh, wishes are a stupid thing, and she is too old to still have so many of them.

She wants to forget him. She supposes that is a reasonable wish to have.

* * *

 

Four years later, in the rain, Galen Erso realises he is, after all, a selfish man. Because he sees his daughter, after all those years of imagining what she might look like – and she’s _beautiful,_ more beautiful than anything he could have made up – and he doesn’t tell her: _Forget me, stardust._

He should, perhaps, but he is dying, and he doesn’t.

“Look at you,” he says, “I’ve so much to tell you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am a little too proud of this title for once and [here's why](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosotis)


End file.
